The Iowa women’s golf team finished fifth at the Big Ten championships last spring, carding their team’s season-best 18-hole score of 305 in one day of play. The top-five finish was the highest the Hawkeyes have placed since 1995, when they finished fourth.

This season, the Hawkeyes are well prepared to improve on that finish.

Head coach Kelly Crawford said this is the most excitement she has felt about a the start of a season since she began coaching at Iowa. Two and a half weeks of practice have shown an incredible chemistry and energy within the team that will take her group to another level, she said.

The finish last year also gives Crawford hope about improvement this season. She saw that highest placement in 14 years as a result of all the hard work the women and the coaching staff put in. So far, the players have shown they are willing to work hard again.

“We’ve got great athletes. Everybody came back and improved, and our freshmen are showing what they’re capable of,” Crawford said. “I can’t wait to put our team out there, and certainly, improving on last year is the goal of this team.”

Excitement is high among the players. During their first practice, the team shot close to 300, a score that both Alison Cavanaugh and Chelsea Harris said would make them competitive in any tournament.

Cavanaugh said she, too, has seen improvement in her teammates and knows that this year will be a great season.

“I feel like everybody has been stepping up her game,” she said. “ Everybody has shaved a few strokes off, and we’re getting better every year, so I’m looking forward to a great senior season.”

Stepping up will be important as Iowa deals with the loss of Tyrette Metzendorf and Becky Quinby.

Last year, Metzendorf consistently finished with the top score on the team and put her name in the Iowa record books.

Her score of 70 at the 2008 Big Ten championships is the record for lowest individual score at the tournament, her 68 at the Lady Northern Invitational also broke Iowa’s 18-hole record, and her 74.9 season scoring average in the fall of 2008 ranks first all-time.

Crawford said she isn’t worried in the slightest about replacing that production, though.

“I have complete confidence that people will step up,” the head coach said. “It’s the level that everybody seems to be playing at right now, which we’re already playing better as a team than last year from a practice standpoint.”

The Hawkeyes are hoping their improvement, and their confidence built from last season, will lead to wins in at least the Hawkeye Invitational, on Oct. 17-18 in Iowa City. Winning that might springboard the team to even bigger wins.

“I think it’d be really good for us to finish in the top three at the Big Ten championships,” Harris said. “Last year we got fifth, and we all played pretty decently, but nobody went very low. I think that if we all click on the same day, we’re contenders for the Big Ten.”

Cavanaugh is also looking for a top-three finish at the championships, but what she likes the most about the current squad is its potential.

“I’m looking forward to how good we can be,” she said. “It’s amazing how any given day, any person on our team could go low and go under par. I’m just excited to see it happen, get those numbers and see what we can do.”